Provenance: Private property, Switzerland.

Exhibitions:
- Brussels 1929, Retrospective Ensor, Palais des Beaux Arts (with ill.).
- Zürich/Antwerp 1983, James Ensor. Kunsthaus Zürich, 20 June - 31 July / 20 August - 30 October (with the label on the reverse).
- Wuppertal 2008/09, James Ensor - Schrecken ohne Ende, Von-der-Heydt Museum (with ill.).

The still life occupied an important place in the world of James Ensor, its elements accompanying him through all of his artistic phases. The artist spent his childhood in Ostend with his mother, who owned a shop with gifts and carnival masks. There, influenced by the curiosities surrounding him, he gave free rein to his creative work: "My mother, daughter of Ostend sea-shell traders, continued her parents' trade and I spent my childhood in the paternal shop, surrounded by the curiosities from the sea and the splendours of mother-of-pearl with a thousand iridescent gleams and bizarre skeletons, monsters and marine plants. The proximity of these wonders, the colours, this light-filled, gleaming opulence, undoubtedly helped turn me in to a painter in love with colour and sensitive to the dazzling play of light.”(see: X. Tricot, James Ensor, life and work, the complete paintings, Brussels 2009, p. 13).

The present work is a preparatory drawing for the painting “La plume de paon” (The peacock feather) from 1914.